


Somebody/Nobody

by Kileykao



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 09:56:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18658105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kileykao/pseuds/Kileykao
Summary: His name is Caleb Widogast.His name isn't Caleb Widogast.





	Somebody/Nobody

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks you to ElsinoreRose for the beta.

His name is Bren Aldric Emendrud. 

He is the pride of his village. He is smart. He is magically inclined. He is bright. He is young. 

He has the world at his fingers. 

He goes to Academy. He is sure. He is smart. He is good. He is a good student. He is magically inclined, and head of his class. 

He gets pulled aside by Trent Ikithon. He gets pulled out of his classes and put into Ikithon’s special lessons. 

Him and Astrid and Wulf are Something. 

Trent Ikithon straps him down to a cold silver table, and tells him that this is what is best for the Empire.   
That this is his duty as a member of the Empire. 

Sharp daggers cut across his arms slowly, methodically, and painfully. 

It is okay. It is for the Empire. 

It is a mantra in the back of his head. This is for the better of the Empire. To make their home stronger. 

Sharp crystals in the different shades of the rainbow get pushed under his skin. It will make you stronger, his teacher says. 

“My dear boy,” Ikithon says as he pushes sharp rainbow colored crystals into the cuts along his arms, “It will make you stronger, for the Empire.”

It is okay. It is for the Empire. 

His name is Bren Aldric Emendrud.   
He is sure that this is what’s best for his people. For the Empire.   
He is smart. He is magically inclined. He is sure of himself.

He lets his teacher drag a dagger across his skin, and push rainbow colored crystals into him.   
He takes up a knife, and presses it into the necks of people who work against the Empire.  
It is fine. It is for the Empire.

It is what the Empire needs of him. 

His name is Bren Aldric Emendrud.   
He is smart. He is magically inclined. He is sure of what he is, and what he and his peers are doing for the Empire.   
He is a murderer. 

He is seventeen years old, and is sure of what he is doing. 

He is smart, magically inclined, and he is sure.   
He is dangerous. 

He returns home. He returns to his parents dressed in the fine clothes of the warmages of the Empire. The reds and blues of his finely made clothes make his parents proud. 

His name is Bren Aldric Emendrud.   
He is seventeen years old. He is smart, magically inclined, and is so sure that this is what Trent Ikithon would want to do. 

Fire has always run in his veins.   
Fire has always been his preferred school of magic.   
He was so sure.

And then his house is on fire. Its oranges and reds and yellows washing over his vision. It is his parents screaming in pain. His cat howling. It's burning. Burning. 

Burning to ash, to nothing.   
It’s gone. His parents are dead. And he did it. 

He was so sure, until he was not. 

He was so sure that this was what was right. That this is what the Empire would have wanted. 

He falls to his knees. His fine warmage clothes are covered in mud, and soot, and tears. 

Time passes.   
Years pass in minutes like it’s nothing.  
Suddenly instead of being seventeen and sure, he is twenty-seven and a mess. 

For the first time in ten years his head is empty. He was so sure. 

He was positive that his parent were traitors to the empire.   
They weren’t.   
Trent Ikithon made him believe it. Made him hear things that weren’t real. 

The crystals in his arms burn. They burn and itch and get them out.

He’s twenty-seven years old when his mind his clear enough to know that he wants out of where he is. He hits his guard on the back of the head, not hard enough to kill him, but hard enough that he’s out cold. 

He wraps his hand around the shiny gold of the protection charm. It will keep him safe. He mostly positive it will. 

He’s not. He’s not sure in any way.

He runs. He runs until he has nothing. 

He runs until his feet are sore, and he’s almost frozen solid.

Bren Aldric Emendrud is not sure anymore.  
He still has a knack for magic. He can still remember everything.  
He is no longer sure of anything.   
He isn’t even sure if he is still Bren. 

So he’s no one. He isn’t anyone. 

He meets an innkeeper. His name is Karl. 

He’s no one. Just a weary traveler

He meets a bookkeeper. His name is Klaus. 

He’s just passing through town .   
He’s no one. 

He summons a familiar. Trent Ikithon had told him that familiars were not worth the time of a wizard of his caliber. The familiar takes the shape of a tiny bengal cat.   
He names him Frumpkin. 

He doesn’t tell the cat his name. 

He travels to another town. His name is Wilhelm. 

He isn’t anyone special.   
Just a dirty traveler with an equally dirty cat.

He tries to steal some bread. He’s hungry, and starving, and he hasn’t eaten in weeks.   
He gets arrested. He meets a little goblin girl in a jail cell. 

His name is Caleb Widogast.   
He is no one.

Her name is Nott the Brave.  
She isn’t anyone either. 

She’s quick and clever. Her fingers are fast, and together with his magic, they burn the jail to the ground. 

His name is Caleb.   
Caleb is no one. Caleb is a broken man being held together by a goblin and a cat. Caleb melts at the sight of fire, and with the help of a goblin, steals to live. 

He doesn’t mean to stay Caleb.   
He doesn’t mean to stay with the goblin girl. 

She has sticky fingers and sticks out like a sore thumb. He doesn’t want to be noticed. He wants to be no one. It’s right for him to be no one. 

He doesn’t deserve to be anything other than nothing.  
He doesn’t deserve this little goblin’s affection. 

He doesn’t mean to stay Caleb. 

She’s good at finding food for them. She is excellent and deadly with a crossbow. 

He doesn’t mean to stay with the sticky fingered goblin.   
She is bright and listens to him as he babbles about spells. She braids his hair full of flowers, and refuses to let Caleb return the favor. 

He doesn’t mean to stay with Nott.   
He doesn’t mean to stay Caleb. 

Suddenly it’s been six months with her, and he knows he would do anything for her.   
He loves her. 

He wouldn’t tell her even if he was dying. 

They find friends.   
Their not as hungry. Not as strapped for gold. 

His name is Caleb Widogast.   
His name isn’t Caleb Widogast. 

Fjord draws the name out in his unique accent.   
Molly playfully says Mr. Caleb, a smile on his face.   
Jester washes a wave of happiness over him every time she says Cayleb.   
Yasha says it softy, an understanding between the two of them.   
And Beau, who he doesn’t call Beau, calls him out on his shit when he needs to be called out on his shit. 

(He likes Beauregard.)

He doesn’t mean to stay Caleb.   
He grows attached to them.   
He doesn’t mean to. 

Their name is The Mighty Nein.   
Their name doesn’t make any sense.   
There isn’t nine of them. 

It’s fine.   
It’s them. 

(He doesn’t want a them, it’s suppose to be just him)  
(He should go.)

 

(He doesn’t leave.)  
(He cannot.)

(We are The Mighty Nein.)

Jester and Fjord and Yasha are gone.   
He wants to leave.   
He does not. 

Molly dies.   
He wants to leave.   
He cannot. 

Nott tells him that he loves them.   
(It’s why he cannot leave.)  
(He won’t admit it.)

He does not deserve their love.   
He does not deserve good things. 

His name is Bren Aldric Emendrud.   
His name is not Bren Aldric Emendrud.   
His name is Caleb Widogast.   
His name isn’t Caleb Widogast. 

They killed their parents.   
They do not deserve good.   
They do not deserve love. 

(He loves them.)

His name isn’t Caleb Widogast.   
Yet he answer to it like a prayer. 

His name isn’t Caleb Widogast.   
But he comes running when called.   
His name isn’t Caleb Widogast.   
And he tells Caduceus Clay it is. 

(They save Fjord and Jester and Yasha.)  
(They ask where Molly is.)

Caleb. 

Cayleb. 

Caleb. 

His name is not Caleb.   
They steal a pirate ship. 

He cannot run.   
(Not just because they’re on the sea.)  
Caleb Widogast is no one.   
Nott almost dies to a Blue Scaled Dragon.  
(Caleb -- no, wait -- he cannot lose her.)  
(He loves her.)

Caleb Widogast is no one.   
(It’s probably a lie.)

They’re pirates.   
And then they aren’t.  
There’s a Sea God.   
(They’ll deal with that later.)

The Mighty Nein run towards Nott’s home.   
They find a burned down shop and people from Bren’s past. 

Her name is Nott the Brave.  
Her name Isn’t Nott the Brave. 

His name is Caleb Widogast.   
His name isn’t Caleb Widogast. 

Her name is Veth Brenatto.   
Her name isn’t Veth Brenatto. 

His name is Bren Aldric Emendrud.   
His name isn’t Bren Aldric Emendrud. 

The two of them. They’re quite the pair. 

(He wants to run.)

Beauregard says don’t.   
(He doesn’t.)

He doesn’t want to.   
He loves them.   
He needs them.   
He wants to protect them. 

Caleb Widogast is no one.   
Caleb Widogast accidentally became someone. 

Caleb Widogast has a family. 

Caleb Widogast doesn’t deserve it.   
He’s always been selfish anyway. 

His name is Caleb Widogast.   
His name is Caleb Widogast. 

Caleb Widogast killed his parents.   
He’s a liar and a thief.   
He’s a wizard and a fighter.   
He’s of the Empire, but no friend to the Empire.   
He was broken, and put back together with duct tape.   
He loves the Mighty Nein. 

Caleb Widogast means something now.   
Caleb Widogast is someone.

His name is Bren Aldric Emendrud   
His name is Caleb Widogast. 

(They’re one and the same.)


End file.
